Hairdressers? That reminds me that I am going to be uncontrollably shaggy if they don't re-open a barber shop somewhere soon.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 06:42 pm: Edit

SPP will like this internet meme quote- "Stormtroopers don't have poor aim! The peace loving Empire always fires warning shots and aims to wound instead of kill. Unlike the war-mongering rebels who killed millions on two Death Stars!

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, May 04, 2020 - 01:10 am: Edit

Happy Star Wars Day! May The Fourth Be With You!

()


Garth L. Getgen

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, May 04, 2020 - 03:36 pm: Edit

My favorite part of "May the Fourth" was the bit where Capt. Reynolds sent out a squadron of Vipers to hit the Klingons while using the Liberator's Improbability Drive to escape.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, May 04, 2020 - 08:43 pm: Edit

You forgot to mention that Colonel Wilma Deering was the lead pilot on that raid.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, May 15, 2020 - 10:03 pm: Edit

The Hobbit narrated by Andy Serkis run-time = ten hours, 26 minutes.

Andy Serkis, in case you forgot, played Gollum in the movies.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, July 24, 2020 - 06:02 am: Edit

This was kind of cool and kind of weird: Chalk Warfare 4 run-time = 16:00. Stay for the post-credit scene.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, July 24, 2020 - 10:30 am: Edit

Really wild!

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Friday, July 24, 2020 - 03:08 pm: Edit

was cool thanks Garth

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 01:49 pm: Edit

How Not to Invade a Planet (Starship Troopers) run-time = 4:42

I think he could have made a video longer than the movie itself to point out all the problems.....


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 02:28 pm: Edit

FICTIONAL STARSHIPS Size COMPARISON Run-time = 12:35


I found that to be fascinating!! I love stuff like that!


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 04:40 pm: Edit

How not to invade: they could have done so much more with the concept than they did.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 06:41 pm: Edit

SVC and Petrick should co-write an article on how sci-fi movies / TV shows get invasions wrong.


Garth L. Getgen

By Daniel Eastland (Democratus) on Friday, October 02, 2020 - 08:40 am: Edit

The big problem I always see is, why invade at all?

1) If you want the planet badly enough, just drop rocks on it and wait a bit.

2) What resources are on a planet that you can't just get in space? Metals, water, volatiles...all available in easy-to-reach asteroids and planetesimals.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, October 02, 2020 - 01:45 pm: Edit

The answer to the resource question is always the same: Labor.

This also gets you "lebensraum" for your burgeoning population.

But, yes, raw materials are generally easy to find in space rocks. But there is no telling how difficult it will be to find living room, or how much labor (which can include cannon fodder to conquer new worlds) you will wind up needing.

That being said, Starship Troopers, the movie, did do a very good job about showing how not to invade a planet.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, October 02, 2020 - 03:10 pm: Edit

That is why F&E doesn't really do planetary invasions. It just suppresses the defenses. There is no way to haul a billion soldiers across the stars to invade an planet like Barbarossa.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Sunday, October 04, 2020 - 01:30 am: Edit

I think I may have found the perfect answer to how to "Invade" (and conquer?) a planet; find SOMEone who will be perceived by the locals as a heroic advocate and have them negotiate for you...

... Kind of like Kezlok did when the Klingons came calling on Arcturia in the "Snapshot of History" short story "An Understanding" (from Captain's Log #36).

(I knew it was there, but it took me a helluva long time to find... )

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, October 04, 2020 - 03:35 pm: Edit

Like Marshal Petain? Chief of State of Vichy France under Germany?

Vidkun Quisling?

A passel of Communists under the USSR?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, October 05, 2020 - 01:38 pm: Edit

The reason to invade a planet are as given.

If you need "living space," you plan about a 100 years or so in advance. Come to the edge of the gravity well, and launch Space Rocks (found drifting through the solar system) and bombard any (and I mean ANY) large population centers. No radiation from the bombardment, but it will reduce the indigenous population. This is best done as a "Time on target" attack, but then you might want the population to turn on itself due to shortages of food and fuel as it flees the population centers to avoid being incinerated by falling rocks. Take your pick.

Once the dust from the initial bombardment has settled down, you land the combat (extermination) troops in the region you have selected for the initial colony, and they eliminate (exterminate) any remaining indigenous population that might be a threat to your colonists. Run aerial reconnaissance over the remaining land masses to keep any indigenous infrastructure from arising until you are reading to exterminate that region for colonization.

Bear in mind that while all this is happening, you are a very, very advanced culture (able to cross the vast depths of space with all that implies for technological advancement) and you are going to employ all that technology for the extermination of the pests on the planetary bodies you plan to set up living quarters on.

There are of course other ways to do this.

See for example "The Srewfly Solution" for one take on the last days of humanity on the planet and absolutely minimal damage to the existing infrastructure that the invaders are going to take over, but no more people after about 60 years from the point of application of the "Solution." Just a lot of rotting corpses to be disposed of.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, October 05, 2020 - 02:02 pm: Edit

A hyper-advanced civilization could be a lot more direct about destroying us. Use either nano-bots or engineered viruses to directly target Humans. Either technique will leave both the resources and biodome mostly intact (except for what we do to ourselves as we are dying), and wipe out better than 99% of Human life on Earth.

Self-replicating nanotech would probably be most effective, as it's unlikely our immune systems could handle it, and it would trivial to install a command-kill code to get rid of them once they were done (to reduce unintended damage to the planet).

It would be trivial to either wipe out, put in a zoo, (or whatever) whatever Humans remained.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, October 05, 2020 - 02:07 pm: Edit

As far as engineered viruses, see "The Screwfly Solution."

Adult males turn on females (of all ages), then eventually the children (whether Female or not). Then die out for lack of reproduction. Little further damage to the planet (infected males tend to like bonfires like the Nazis did as they announce the need to save mankind from woman kind).

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, October 05, 2020 - 02:37 pm: Edit

Unless you are afraid of the "Chinese Solution" (invaders folded into the population), why even worry about the natives.....

In most cases, providing better medicine and more food around will get you welcomed in most cases.....

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, October 05, 2020 - 02:44 pm: Edit

"The Second Game." Fiction story where Earth finds an enemy too hard to beat, and surrenders its small empire (after a Major Colony world is reduced to ashes) and wins "the second game" by Earth Women choosing to breed with our alien overlords and absorbing them.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, October 05, 2020 - 02:52 pm: Edit

I remember reading that story years ago. The aliens had a chess like game, and we sent a grand-master as a spy, he decided that the best solution was for us to lose the war as quickly as possible. But I do not remember who it was by.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, October 05, 2020 - 03:20 pm: Edit

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Quote:

by Earth Women choosing to breed with out alien overlords and absorbing them.

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